The Australian beef industry welcomes the Australia-UK free trade agreement (FTA), which will come into force in 2022, as it allows tariff-free entry to increasing Australian meat volumes into the UK over the next decade.

The deal will diversify Australia’s export markets, creating ongoing certainty for Australian producers, according to industry group Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA).

“Under the A-UK FTA, future trade will be more streamlined, removing burdensome costs from the red meat supply chain that ultimately disadvantage British consumers and stifle opportunities for market development,” said Andrew McDonald, chairman of the Australia-UK red meat market access taskforce.

Under the agreement the UK will allow up to 35,000t of tariff-free Australian beef to be imported in the first year, which will gradually ramp up to 110,000t in the 10th year, before the tariff-free quota is removed altogether. For sheep meat, a tariff-free quota of 25,000t in the first year will expand to 75,000t in the 10th year, before being eliminated.

Australian beef exporters currently pay a tariff of 12pc on product sold in the UK. The 35,000t initial quota is more than 10 times the average of around 2,500-3,000 t/yr of beef entering the UK from Australia during 2015-2019.

The deal, which was agreed in principle between the prime ministers of both countries in June, was signed by their trade ministers on 17 December.

SAO PAULO/AMSTERDAM, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Six European supermarket chains, including two owned by Dutch firm Ahold Delhaize and a Carrefour  subsidiary, said on Wednesday they would stop selling some or all beef products from Brazil due to links with destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

The pledges ranged from supermarket chain Lidl Netherlands, which committed to stop selling all beef originating in South America starting in 2022, to more focused decisions to halt sales of certain corned beef or beef jerky products.

Many of the products affected are linked to the world’s largest meatpacker, JBS SA.

The boycotts are in response to an investigation by Brazilian publication Reporter Brasil that alleged JBS indirectly sourced cows from illegally deforested areas, in a scheme known as “cattle laundering.”

This occurs when cattle raised on an illegally deforested plot of land are sold to a legitimate farm before sale to a slaughterhouse, to hide its origin.

By Jake Spring and Anthony Deutsch / Reuters

Red meat is being treated as a ‘scapegoat’ for health and climate change concerns, according to an internationally renowned dietician.

Diana Rodgers RD, a ‘real food’ nutritionist and sustainability advocate, made the comments at Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales’ (HCC) annual conference.

She said red meat production was ‘misunderstood’ and ‘unfairly targeted’ due to concerns surrounding health issues and the climate crisis.

Ms Rodgers, based in Boston, Massachusetts, said this ‘propaganda was not only incredibly damaging, but wrong’.

“My approach is ‘what is the optimal diet for humans and how can we grow it in a sustainable way’,” she told delegates at the recent event.

“It’s much easier to pin our worries on something as powerful and polarising as red meat rather than tackling the world’s complex problems and tackling them in a cleverer and more nuanced way.”

She said: “There is bundled-up propaganda out there that says that meat causes cancer, heart disease, diabetes; that it’s bad for the environment; it’s unnecessary – why eat meat when we can just engineer proteins in labs? – and it is unethical; that those who are ‘more enlightened’ have moved beyond meat eating.”

by Farming UK 

At least 30,000 pigs have now been culled on farm and will not enter the food chain as pig producers have run out of options.

The National Pig Association (NPA) says that in reality, the number of animals culled is higher, since the 30,000 cases are only those reported to the organisation.

By Lisa Young  / South West Farmer

AHDB has said it will no longer provide its annual funding into Red Tractor as it was now a ‘financially established and self-sustaining’ body’.

The levy body said it agreed to put levy funding into Red Tractor following an industry consultation in 2008, which backed the development of a comprehensive food quality assurance scheme to consolidate farm audits and the development of a single label as the manifestation of trusted production standards.

It comes as levy payers raise concerns around grain imports and assurance and whether the controls in place for imported grain provide the same levels of assurance.

This decision has taken effect from this financial year however Red Tractor has been informed future funding could be provided if specific projects were identified that would be to the benefit of levy payers.

AHDB chair Nicholas Saphir said: “It remains AHDB’s clear position that farm assurance is necessary and important to farming success, as a consumer benchmark, or ‘kite mark’, denoting safety, quality and provenance and/or in helping farmers achieve premium prices where food is produced to particular standards which customers and consumers attach additional value.

“Red Tractor is now well established and it no longer requires AHDB’s basic annual financial support,” he said.

By Alex Black / Farmers Guardian

The trade deal between UK and Australia has been signed – but farmers have called it a “one-sided deal”.

The deal was signed in a virtual ceremony by International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan last night (December 16) and will now be scrutinised by Parliament.

Ms Trevelyan said: “Our UK-Australia trade deal is a landmark moment in the historic and vital relationship between our two commonwealth nations.

“This agreement is tailored to the UK’s strengths, and delivers for businesses, families, and consumers in every part of the UK – helping us to level up. We will continue to work together in addressing shared challenges in global trade, climate change and technological changes in the years ahead.

“Today we demonstrate what the UK can achieve as an agile, independent sovereign trading nation.

“This is just the start as we get on the front foot and seize the seismic opportunities that await us on the world stage.”

The agreement gives UK firms guaranteed access to bid for an additional £10 billion worth of Australian public sector contracts per year and allows 18-35-year-olds to work and travel in Australia for up to three years at a time, removing previous visa conditions.

However, NFU President Minette Batters said: “As we feared following the agreement in principle, there appears to be extremely little in this deal to benefit British farmers.

“We will analyse the detail in full but on the face of it, this is a one-sided deal.

by Lisa Young / South West Farmer

Russia resumed the import of beef and pork from 12 Brazilian units in late November 2021, Brazil’s health security regulator reported.

Most of the restrictions on Brazilian beef and pork had been in place since 2017. The reason was related to allegations of ractopamine usage for animal feeding, which Brazilian groups in the meat industry denied.

In October 2021, Russia had already allowed the resuming of beef imports from 3 major Brazilian exporters. The new release, late November, applied to another 12 facilities, 9 for pork and 3 for beef.

The Russian department Rosselkhoznadzor did not reveal which units received the new status. The Russian watchdog on sanitary topics stated, “Rosselkhoznadzor continues to work on expanding the list of Brazilian producers certified to supply beef and pork to Russia.”

The announcement comes after Brazilian Agriculture minister Tereza Cristina met in the Russian capital Moscow with Sergey Dankvert, the head of Rosselkhoznadzor. During the meeting, he also guaranteed the realisation of an inspection visit to Brazil in the 1st quarter of 2022, aimed at qualifying new Brazilian meatpacking plants for exports.

The current tariff by the Russians is 15% on imports until 530,000 tonnes of Brazilian meat. That is part of Moscow’s measures, aiming to stabilise domestic inflation, which has never been so high in the last 5 years.

Daniel Azevedo / Pig Progress

(Sharecast News) – Food packaging business Hilton Food Group said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire smoked salmon producer Dutch Seafood Company as part of an effort to expand its presence in a growing protein category and enter the US, a new geography for the firm.

In order to fund the bulk of the €90.0m acquisition, Hilton Food launched an equity placing aimed at raising approximately £75.0m, while the balance will be funded through a committed acquisition bridge facility.
A portion of the funds will also be used to partially refinance Hilton’s previously announced acquisition of Fairfax Meadow.
While the FTSE 250-listed group did not disclose the total number of shares being placed as part of the fundraiser, the figure was expected to represent approximately 8% of the company’s existing issued share capital.

Hilton anticipates the acquisition of Dutch Seafood Company, which trades under the name Foppen, will be accretive to earnings per share in the first twelve months for Hilton while ensuring net leverage remains below 2.0x.

Chief executive Philip Heffer said: “The acquisition of Foppen is an exceptional opportunity for Hilton and another step towards our goal of becoming the global protein partner of choice. More and more consumers around the world are seeking affordable, high-quality, and sustainable protein, and this acquisition will help Hilton take our offer into new markets and to new global customers for the first time.

Sharecast News / London South East

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Argentina will loosen export restrictions on beef that were put in place in a bid to curtail inflation and had been panned by meatpackers, the government said on Thursday after a meeting with industry groups.

Argentina’s inflation hovers around an eye-watering 50% a year, while the poverty rate sits at 40%, factors that had pressured center-left President Alberto Fernandez to try to contain rising food prices by curbing beef exports.

Restrictions will remain in place, however, on the most consumed cuts in Argentina, in a bid to prevent those prices from rising.

By Maximilian Heath / Reuters

CHICAGO, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Tyson Foods Inc plans to spend more than $1.3 billion to increase automation in meat plants over the next three years, Chief Executive Donnie King said on Thursday, as a U.S. labour shortage has limited production while demand is booming.

Meat processors have been unable to find enough workers for the past two years due to the tight labour market and health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company will increasingly use machines, instead of people, to debone chicken, one of its most labour-intensive jobs and a position with high turnover, said David Bray, group president of Tyson’s poultry division. A capital investment of $500 million in the area through fiscal year 2024 will generate labour savings equal to more than 2,000 jobs, he said.

Profitability in Tyson’s chicken unit has declined partly due to the labour shortage and because processing plants are operating below full capacity, Bray said.

“We are not servicing our customers to the degree that they expect us to,” Bray said.

Reuters